Lucio Palmieri

b 1987 Emiglia Romagna, Italy.
Lives and works in Berlin and Milan.

ARTIST STATEMENT

Lucio Palmieri’s Calendar of Saints

For the Catholic religion a saint is a human being who, following Jesus Christ’s example, has lived in the name of love, embodying in his actions all of the Christian virtues, often by sacrificing his own life.
The lives of the saints were often exciting stories: some of them find their roots in folklore or even in pagan mythology. Sometimes these are gory stories of young girls’ throats being cut or the violent removal women’s breasts, of virgin maidens leading armies, men crucified or torn apart by wild beasts, of tears of blood, of eyes extirpated or bodies pierced like meat.

For hundreds of years these stories have been linked to an intangible spirituality, a divine longing, or absence of corporeality which we call “faith”. On the other hand, the tales are carnal, visceral, sensual, twisted and profoundly human.

In the early days of Christianity, every Christian was a saint but today, according to theology, there are no unique characteristics of holiness: everyone has his own sanctity; everyone can and must be holy. But who is a Saint today? And what is the meaning of “Sanctity” and „Sin” nowadays?

Lucio Palmieri presents his take on the fashion world’s quasi religious rituals in his 365 Dolce & Gabbana-clad paper saints. Originally conceived as a project for Dolce & Gabbana’s now extinct online magazine ‚Swide‘, Palmieri was commissioned to create a saint a day for one year. Each saint was carefully researched, using traditional as well as modern interpretations to reinvent the saints as we know them. Palmieri uses a variety of medium to create his saints, each one is individually hand-crafted using collage, pen and ink, colored pencils, as well as old playing cards, to explore the aesthetic and critical potential that the religious imagery and its symbols still hold today.

Vita

After moving to Milan, he achieved his degree in restoration and conservation of contemporary art at the Academia of Brera. His unique works are created by making use of an unconventional method, which involve playing cards and drawing tools. His art depicts fascinating bodies, miserable anatomies and deformed bodies, revealing a forbidden world. His drawings and collages have been the main attraction in his personal and collective exhibitions between Milan and Berlin, while his illustrations have also appeared in projects for children’s books and the fashion world.